I recently was invited to speak at TEDxSeattle. Parkour has had such a big impact on my life, so I knew parkour had to be involved in my talk somehow. And yet, I wanted to do something bigger than just another talk on parkour.

Since moving to Seattle, the focus of my life has really shifted from parkour to startups. After a lot of thinking, I realized how much parkour has impacted my thinking - even in the startup world. So, I wrote this talk...

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I have your book! Very nice talk. I agree that problems can seem like a 30 foot wall, I sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by them, but the simple one page planning you talked about is really genius. When planning out my project, this is useful, plus who wants to read a 50 page business plan! :P Thanks.

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My name is Zachary Cohn, and I've met a lot of people from the Internet. Most recently I met my doppelganger, Zachary Cohen.

[caption id="attachment_133" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Internet is a Series of Tubes"][/caption]Meeting people from the Internet is not a big deal to me anymore, although other people still freak out when I mention it. There have been three primary circles I've met people from: Massassi, Parkour, and The Rest of the Internet. The first two really helped me be comfortable with the last one.

Massassi.net started in 1997 and was dedicated to editing and modding a Star Wars game called Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. The game is now 14 years old, and except for the occasional game for “old times sake” no one has played in five years. But everyone was such good friends and the community was so tight that most people have stayed around. I found Massassi in 2001, and have checked it daily since.

The first person I met from the Internet was through Massassi, and was probably Gebhoq. I found out he lived about 20 minutes away, so we saw a play and grabbed lunch together. After that, I visited Rochester Institute of Technology, where I was going to go to school. There were six people from Massassi that, by chance, all ended up there, so we met up and they showed me around. I've met a bunch more people from Massassi, but I had talked daily with most of them for years, so it was more like reuniting with a long-time friend.

The next circle of internet meetings is through Parkour. When I first started training, there was no one experienced in my area. I saw on some local parkour forums that a bunch of people meeting up to train in Washington DC, so I drove down to meet them. I showed up in this park to find a dozen teenage boys, mostly shirtless, jumping, climbing, and flipping around. I was a bit nervous at first - I didn't even know most of their handles, let alone names or anything about them. Five minutes after introducing myself, I felt we'd known each other for years. Since that first parkour jam, I've been great friends with Leonn, Psychosis, Doc_Ahk, Kipup, and RPG.[caption id="attachment_135" align="alignright" width="150" caption="David Belle - Parkour"][/caption]

This piece tells you Zac Cohn's story and awakening from being shy, to becoming a cutting edge athlete in parkour, to learning how to actually make sure you're building things that people actually want with your business time.

Zac is doing a GiveGetWin deal that has a mix of a group class and personal attention: Personal Training In How To Build Products That People Actually Want. It'll be an outstanding and insightful experience.